Work Less, Earn More

Are you more “left-brained” or “right-brained”?   We all have some balance between the more analytical and the more creative/emotional sides, but most of us lean more one way or the other.   A lot of entrepreneurs -- especially visionary, founder sorts -- are extremely creative, always coming up with new ideas and solutions. Many even refer to themselves as “creative entrepreneurs.”   Those right-brain skills are KEY for entrepreneurial success… but they still have to be balanced out.   Because while creativity can get you started and keep you inspired… it’s analyzing the numbers that will allow you to stay in business long term.   Maybe “analyzing the numbers” sounds fun to you! (Where my nerdy friends at??)   But, on the other hand, if it sounds scary, hard, or boring… well, I just want to let you know right now that it doesn’t have to be any of those things.   Understanding your business’s numbers -- and making strategic decisions based off of them -- is an essential skill as an entrepreneur, and it can actually be quite interesting and easy!   To show you exactly how to do this for yourself, I asked Rita Barry to come on the podcast this week. Rita specializes in metric-driven marketing for online businesses, and she shared some really practical advice on how to get started making more strategic, numbers-based decisions in our businesses. Listen to the full episode to hear: How to keep your metric-driven marketing plan super simple The questions to ask when making your plan The best way to spot bottlenecks in your business and what to do about them How to find what’s working in your marketing and the best way to pull and read reports Learn more about Rita Barry: ritabarry.co Follow Rita on Instagram Connect with Rita on LinkedIn   Learn more about Gillian: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!  

Every month, I’m peeling back the curtain and sharing the ins & outs of my monthly revenue.   These income reports are an in-depth and honest look at how much my business earned, what it cost, and how many hours it took me to do it.   This is the very last income report of 2020. I’m glad I committed to doing monthly income reports -- it gave me accountability to really look at the numbers regularly and see exactly how things were going.   Every month, I’ve felt like we didn’t do very well: like we didn’t earn very much, like we spent too much, and like we worked too much.   But when the month finally wrapped and I looked at the numbers… we’d done awesome!   That’s what I like about numbers: they tell us the truth. Unlike our subjective perspective, which is highly distorted by emotion.   So let’s dive into the numbers.   In every income report, I share which tasks and projects really ended up paying me best so that you can see how I’m optimizing my business so that I can work less and earn more over time. Plus, you’ll get a time report, breaking down the time I spend on each activity and how that created a financial result (or not). Listen to the full episode to hear: How we earned $37,530.08 in November What we learned from last year’s Black Friday promotion and what we did differently this year Why our income month-to-month isn’t always tied to that month’s activities Why we spent most of this month planning for 2021 Links: Instagram: @gillianzperkins Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Startup Society Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!

We all do it. We judge books by their covers… and also by their size.   Somehow we think that if a book has more pages then we’re going to get MORE out of it.   We do the same thing if we buy an online course: we think that if it was more expensive it’s going to be more valuable and that if we open it and it has more modules than we thought that we’re going to get A LOT more out of it. We assume, therefore, that it will be more useful.   I’m guilty of this thinking, too. Sometimes I find myself doing this with podcast episodes (like this one, for example!) “Oh, that episode’s only eight minutes long—it probably won’t even be worth my time.”   But we all know that sometimes the best gifts come in the smallest packages: the check for $100K, the engagement ring, the simple (yet powerful) advice of a mentor.   In the spirit of keeping it simple, today’s episode is only 8 minutes long. If you have that time to spare, give it a listen. In just a few minutes, I share some advice I got last year from one of my mentors that’s allowed me to work significantly LESS while increasing our revenue by over 80%.   Who knows, maybe it’s exactly what you need to hear to work less and earn more in your business, too! Listen to the full episode to hear: Why you should ALWAYS ask yourself: what would this look like if it were simple? Why more complicated strategies WON’T necessarily get us bigger and better results Sometimes more complex ideas are addictive—we feel like once we’ve identified them that we can’t live without them—but is that really true? Learn more about Gillian: Attract Paying Customers Action Plan Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Startup Society Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!    

Two words: MIND. BLOWN.   I used to believe a LOT of myths about SEO, including: Google ranks websites higher if they’re frequently updated More content means your site has more chances of ranking well Adding target keywords to articles is the best way to tell Google what it’s about   And by “used to” I don’t mean years ago.   Nope… these are all myths I believed as recently as last week.   That is until I talked to Kim Herrington.   Kim’s an expert in SEO, search engine marketing, and digital marketing—and she’s the founder of a digital marketing agency where she helps businesses, entrepreneurs, and influencers harness the power of search engines while maintaining high ethical standards and simplifying the process.   On today’s episode, Kim shed a LOT of light on an often mysterious subject: how to get your website to rank well on Google. Honestly, she shared a lot of things that surprised me!   So… if your website is one of the main ways your business attracts customers, this is a can’t-miss episode. Listen to the full episode to hear: Can SEO tactics create predictable results? How complex is SEO? Is it something anyone can do or is professional help necessary? What SEO tactics create the biggest results? What are the first steps to getting a website to rank on the first page of Google? Learn more about Kimberley Herrington: Transform Your Business with Strategic SEO Guide to Get More Website Traffic Instagram   Learn more about Gillian: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!    

Sales funnels. You might be thinking: those are one of those complicated things everyone says you need in order to be successful, but really… they’re probably just a distraction from what you really need. Right? Actually… No. (Sorry, not sorry.) In fact, if there’s ONE thing a business needs -- it’s a sales funnel. Good news though! EVERY business (that successfully makes money) manages to check this box -- even if unintentionally. Sales funnels don’t need to be complex. Here’s the thing… a “sales funnel” is just the process that your potential customers go through to find out about your business, decide to buy your product, and then purchase. Donut shops have sales funnels. Hair salons have sales funnels. Coaching businesses have sales funnels. Software companies have sales funnels. Amazon has a sales funnel. Literally, EVERY business has one. But if you don’t intentionally design your funnel, then it’s unlikely that it will work very well. Listen to the full episode to hear: Why EVERY business needs a strategic sales funnel to make money Everything you need to know about funnels, including what they are, how they work, and how to set one up for yourself My best tips for creating a sales funnel that generates the max number of sales The four components you need in order for your sales funnels to be as SUCCESSFUL as possible Learn more about Gillian Attract Paying Customers Action Plan Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Startup Society Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!

Every month, I’m peeling back the curtain and sharing the ins & outs of my monthly revenue.   These income reports are an in-depth and honest look at how much my business earned, what it cost, and how many hours it took me to do it.   They say “time flies when you’re having fun,” and that’s exactly what we experienced in the month of October.   Somehow, we managed to launch THREE new sales funnels… and not just “launch,” but create completely from scratch.   As always, I’ll also share which tasks and projects really ended up paying me best so that you can see how I’m optimizing my business so that I can work less and earn more over time. Plus, you’ll get a time report, breaking down the time I spend on each activity and how that created a financial result (or not).   I hope that you’ll be able to learn from my trial and error, as I work to grow my business, my impact, and my income––all while keeping clear boundaries on my time and personal life.   Today, we’re looking back on October 2020 and I’ll give you ALL the details on these new funnels. Because (::hint, hint::), if you aren’t making money in your business, it might be because you don’t have an effective sales process… Listen to the full episode to hear: The 3 new sales funnels we created from scratch in October How long it took me to prepare a new webinar funnel for Startup Society How much we earned from Startup Society, affiliate marketing, YouTube ad revenue, and tripwire products Why Facebook ads were our biggest expense so we can prioritize the ones bringing in the most profit (plus, all the other expenses we saw in October) Why we hired a new graphic designer and how we’re changing our content to provide even more value Links: Instagram: @gillianzperkins Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!

Facebook ads are everything right now—and whether you hire it out to an ad agency or you DIY, the goal of your ads should always be to make a profit… which is harder than you might think.   If you’re DIYing it, you might be boosting a post here and there. Those kinds of activities might get your post in front of your audience—but a boost doesn’t necessarily translate to new customers or sales.   And that’s just one beginner mistake you could make. But don’t worry! There are LOTS of smart, tactical ways to do FB ads right so that you get in front of the right people with the right message or offer and grow your business.   No doubt the FB advertising world can be super confusing. That’s why I invited my paid advertising genius, Tony Rulli of Intentional Spark, onto the podcast to demystify ads and help you understand why you might not be getting the return that you’re hoping for.   Tony runs the Facebook ads for Startup Society and my personal brand as well as many other well-known names, including Jasmine Star, Brooke Castillo, Acuity Scheduling, Convertkit, and many others. And there’s a good reason—he really knows his stuff! Listen to the full episode to hear: The most common mistakes that sabotage people’s FB ad success -- and how you can avoid them! The highest converting funnels that give you the best Return-on-Ad-Spend (so you can maximize your profits) What’s changed with paid advertising in 2020… and how you can survive and even thrive in these strange times! And finally: how big of a budget you REALLY need to be successful with FB ads. (I loved Tony’s take on this -- though it might surprise some people because it’s not your typical “you can start with even $5 a day!” optimism.) Learn more about Tony Rulli: Intentionalspark.com Follow Tony on Instagram Get Instant Access To Tony’s Facebook Ad Video Training Bundle   Learn more about Gillian: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!  

Sometimes, the truth can be hard to swallow…   But knowing the truth empowers us to make the best decisions.   Here’s one of those truths: if you’re building an audience online, only 2% of your audience will EVER buy from you.   This goes whether you have 100 followers on IG, a million email subscribers, or anything in between.   Of course, we can work on improving that percentage, but we’ll never be able to change the fact that MOST of our audience just follows us for the free stuff.   And that’s okay! In fact, it’s a good thing, because it means we can impact the lives of a far greater number of people than those who are actually interested in pulling out their credit card.   BUT, it also means that if we want to increase our sales, then we NEED to prioritize growing our audiences.   (Yes, you 100% can be successful with a small audience… but you can be even more successful if you can reach more people.)   Social media is a great place to get exposure and reach new people, but we all know that email subscribers are the crème de la crème of an online audience, because those are the people you can reach most directly + predictably.   (Meaning… no need cross your fingers and HOPE an algorithm cooperates!)   In this week’s podcast, I share three email list growth strategies… and these aren’t just random strategies that sound good. These are the strategies that consistently WORK and have grown my email list to 98,000 subscribers.   (We’re currently adding 8,000 new subscribers every month with these tactics!)   I know what it’s like to wonder WHY your list isn’t growing; and maybe even to feel like you’re the only one. For the first several years of trying to grow my list, I really struggled:   These were the tactics that finally made the difference, and I want to share them with you.   Listen to the episode now (or download for later!) and start growing your email list a lot more quickly.   There’s no reason to keep struggling when the tools are available. I KNOW you can do this once you know-how!   Here’s to your success!   Listen to the full episode to hear: The 3 tactics I’ve used to grow my email list and add 8,000 new subscribers every month How I use Pinterest to supercharge traffic to my website and grow my email list Why YouTube is a key player when you want to grow your email list (and how to turn followers into email subscribers) The impact that appearing on other people’s podcasts has on your email growth   Learn more about Gillian: Attract Paying Customers Action Plan Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!   Resources mentioned in this episode: EP 33: Blog vs Podcast vs YouTube: Which Should You Start?  

A few weeks ago, I gave my Instagram account a good clean out. I unfollowed a couple hundred accounts that weren’t really what I wanted or needed in my life right now.   Goal: to see more of the things I really care about!   The next day, as I scrolled through my feed, I saw a post from my friend Lucy.   Hey, it’s Lucy!, I said to myself. Man, I haven’t seen her in forever. I wonder how she’s been! What’s she up to these days, anyway…?   I tapped on her profile pic to navigate to her bio.   ::reading bio::   Wait, what?!   She sold Thirty THOUSAND courses??   That, my friend, is a LOT of courses.   Naturally, I DMed Lucy straight-away to ask her to come on the podcast and tell us her strategy.   (I may or may not have been super curious to know myself.)   The story gets even better, though, because once we got on the phone, I learned that not only had she sold 30,000 courses… she’d done it in just 18 months.   If you’re as eager as I was to know how she did it, then go listen to the episode now, because it was SO interesting. Lucy explained her whole strategy and really didn’t hold back!   I loved this interview, and if you’re interested in selling online courses then I’m pretty sure you will as well!   Listen to the full episode to hear: The funnel Lucy's using to quickly grow her list— at a profit! How Lucy not only sells thousands of courses, but also maximizes the value earned from each customer Lucy's top traffic sources that ensure she never runs out of leads, even though her audience is small.   Learn more about Lucy Griffiths: lucygriffiths.com Confident On Camera Course Follow Lucy on YouTube   Learn more about Gillian: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!

I’ve been a teacher for over 13 years now, and I’m confident this skill is part of my God-given purpose here on earth.   But for the first 8+ years of teaching, I didn’t earn a very good living from the work. I was tied down to my local area, my calendar was crammed with lessons, and I was barely able to support my family.   Eventually, I scaled my local business and things got a bit better -- but it still felt like an uphill battle. This was one of the key motivators for starting my online business: I wanted to work from wherever (be that my living room, the local Starbucks, or a Parisian café) and on my own schedule.   So when I learned about “membership sites” for the first time… I immediately knew I was interested.   A membership site would allow me to use my teaching gifts to have a positive impact on the lives of others while at the same time maximizing -- and stabilizing -- my profits by creating monthly recurring revenue.   Sign me UP!   It took a few years to figure out how to start a membership, what I’d teach, and who it would be for -- but eventually, I got it off the ground, and today my membership program is my businesses’ main source of revenue!   Listen to the full episode to hear: How much my membership, Startup Society, earns each month Fixed costs and variable expenses of running a membership site The biggest challenges I faced when I got the program off the ground Mistakes I've made and lessons learned   Learn more about Gillian: Attract Paying Customers Action Plan Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!   Resources mentioned in this episode: The Best $7000 I Ever Spent Access Ally: Membership plugin Flourish Online: They specialize in setting up membership sites